Banish Beating Yourself Up: 10 Tips for Building High Self-Esteem

American women have a self-esteem problem. According to a survey by Dove, 50% of women have low self-esteem. With all the negative influences in our culture, it’s no wonder so many women struggle with this. You don’t have to struggle with low self-esteem, though.

Use these ten tips to help you build high self-esteem and feel more positive about yourself. After all, you should be your own best cheerleader.

1. Pack the Negative Away

When we make a mistake, we can let a minor snafu become a huge monster in our minds. Instead of allowing a tiny blunder to become life-changing, stop and force yourself to narrow it down instead.

Try to put the mistake into the tiniest box possible. It helps to picture the box mentally.

Let’s say you misspoke during a presentation. This isn’t a career-ending mistake; you had a poor choice of words.

2. Power of Positive Thinking

This isn’t what you think. Don’t try to force yourself to say positive things. This will trigger your inner lie detector and then have you feeling worse than you did before.

Instead, aim for neutral. Focus on the facts. For instance, instead of saying, “I’m a fat cow” say something like, “I want to lose 10 pounds, and this is how I do it.”

3. Name Your Inner Critic

Give that inner voice a name. Make it as silly and ridiculous as you can. It’s hard to take that inner voice seriously when it has a name that makes you giggle.

A silly name will have some humor to the moment. This is a great way to break the emotional hold that the anxiety has you in. Over the long term, this silly name gain power and short circuits the anxiety.

4. Use a Positive Spin

Try to put some distance between you and the thing that is making you feel bad about yourself. By changing the wording of your statement can make a big difference in how you see yourself.

“I’m so stupid” is a very negative and personal statement. Instead, try saying, “Boy, did I feel stupid”. Now you put some space between you and the feeling of being stupid.

5. Name Your Rants

While we are giving names to things, give one to your rants too. One expert suggests calling them stories. The goal is to turn the thought process into something that doesn’t deserve valid consideration.

Doing this can also highlight the similarities from one “story” to the next. Now you can distinguish between valid feedback and habits.

6. Are You Really so Guilty?

When you catch yourself thinking negative thoughts about yourself, you need to question the validity. Let’s say something embarrassing happens like you left the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to your shoe.

You catch yourself beating yourself up about how embarrassing this is. Take a moment and question this: was it as bad as you think?

Maybe, in reality, everyone was too focused on their own tasks to even notice. Now you can stop this anxiety spiral before it even starts by looking at the facts of the situation.

7. Embrace the Imperfect

Stop holding yourself to impossible and unachievable standards. Those women in magazine ads don’t look like that in real life.

Thanks to Photoshop, you are holding yourself to a standard that doesn’t exist in real life.

The sooner you accept that you will never be perfect, the happier and less stressed you will be. You should also take a lesson from those who are successful.

None of these people will ever say that they got to where they are because they are perfect. Instead, they will all tell you that what made them a success was their failures. They would fail, learn from the experience, then grow and move on.

9. What Would Your Best Friend Say?

An easy way to stop the spiral of negative self-talk is to think about what someone you trust would say. Imagine yourself telling them the story of what went wrong.

Now, what would they respond with? Most likely, they will tell you that you getting worked up for nothing. Or that it wasn’t as devastating as you are making it out to be.

Another way to use this rule is to never say anything to yourself that you wouldn’t say to your best friend. Would you tell your best friend that they are stupid, fat or a loser in life?

No, of course, you wouldn’t. So stop saying it to yourself.

10. Identify Triggers

Now that you know how to combat your inner critic and the negative thoughts, you should look at ways of preventing them in the first place. This way, you can spend less time fighting the inner critic and more time enjoying life.

Evaluate your daily life and identify the triggers that cause you to think negatively. Maybe it is a particular person, place, or activity.

Your first line of defense is to remove that negative trigger from your life. If you can’t do this, you can change the way you approach and react to the trigger.

If it is legal in your state, you can use a cannabis vape pen. This way, you can manage your anxiety and approach the situation in a calm and purposeful manner. You can learn more here about all the other ways cannabis can boost your confidence.

Achieve High Self-Esteem

You won’t achieve high self-esteem overnight. The longer you have had low self-esteem, the longer it will take for you to retrain your brain. Keep at it though, and put these tips into practice.

One day you’ll wake up and realize that you see yourself in a positive light — one where you have the confidence to go out and kick ass at life.

Build your self-esteem and overall positive vibe by checking out our cool vibes section.